# Exa API pricing: search, contents, answer and agent costs

Exa API pricing from Exa's own page: the price of Lite, Auto and Deep search, contents, answer and agent runs, the free credits, and what an agent search costs.

## Summary

Exa API pricing is per request, and the price depends on which search you ask for. Lite search is the cheapest, Auto search costs more and Deep search the most; page contents, answers and monitors each have their own rate, and the Agent API bills by effort. Every account gets free credits each month without a card.

So the real question is not "how much is Exa" but "which Exa call does my agent make, and how often". This post reads Exa's pricing page as it stood on 2026-11-03, lays out each endpoint's price, explains the extras that change a bill (more results, page summaries, contents), and shows the same search per call through looot with live prices.

## Exa API pricing per endpoint

Exa prices six endpoints per 1,000 requests or pages. Search prices include up to 10 results; each result above 10 adds a small fee per 1,000 requests, and AI page summaries add another. Contents is priced per page and per content type, so asking for both text and highlights counts twice.

Exa API price per endpoint. Read on 2026-11-03 from [exa.ai/pricing](https://exa.ai/pricing).

| Endpoint | Base price | Each result above 10 | AI page summaries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lite Search | $4 per 1,000 requests | $1 per 1,000 requests | $1 per 1,000 pages |
| Auto Search | $7 per 1,000 requests | $1 per 1,000 requests | $1 per 1,000 pages |
| Deep Search | $12 per 1,000 requests | $1 per 1,000 requests | $1 per 1,000 pages |
| Contents | $1 per 1,000 pages per content type | None | $1 per 1,000 pages |
| Monitors | $2 per 1,000 requests | $1 per 1,000 requests | $1 per 1,000 pages |
| Answer | $5 per 1,000 requests | None | None |

Search prices include up to 10 results per request. Every account gets $10 in free credits a month plus a $10 onboarding bonus, with no payment method needed.

Exa's page says search latency is configurable from about 450 milliseconds to one second, and the search type is where you choose. Lite fits an agent loop that calls search many times per task. Deep fits a single hard question where a better first answer saves follow-up calls.

## What makes an Exa bill bigger than the base price?

Three settings add to the base price of a search, and an agent framework can turn them on without you noticing:

1. **More than 10 results.** Each extra result above 10 is billed per 1,000 requests.
2. **Page summaries.** An AI summary per returned page is billed per 1,000 pages.
3. **Contents with the search.** Asking for page text and highlights in the same call bills Contents on each page, per content type.

A search that asks for 25 results with text and summaries can cost several times the base search price. Check the parameters your framework or MCP client sends before you budget from the table.

## Exa plans, free credits and the Agent API

Exa has a free plan, pay as you go and Enterprise. The free plan gives credits each month plus an onboarding bonus with no payment method, and access to every endpoint. Pay as you go raises the search rate limit; Enterprise adds zero data retention and up to 1,000 results per search.

Exa plans and Agent API pricing. Read on 2026-11-03 from [exa.ai/pricing](https://exa.ai/pricing).

| Item | Price or limit |
|---|---|
| Free plan | $10 in credits a month plus a $10 onboarding bonus, 10 search queries per second |
| Pay as you go | Per-request prices above, up to 25 search queries per second, SOC 2 Type II |
| Enterprise | Custom, zero data retention, up to 1,000 results per search |
| Agent, minimal to x-high effort | $0.012, $0.025, $0.10, $0.50 or $1.00 per request |
| Agent compute unit | $0.10 per unit |
| Agent search tool call | $0.005 per search |
| Agent contact enrichment | $0.02 per email, $0.07 per phone number |

Agent runs on effort auto by default, which scales compute and tool calls to the task; a fixed effort level gives a fixed price per request. Contact enrichment is billed on top.

The Agent API runs asynchronous research and returns structured output with citations. On the default effort, auto, the cost scales with the task, so you cannot know it before the run. If you need a fixed price per request, set a fixed effort level.

## What does one Exa search cost through looot?

Through your own Exa key, you pay Exa's price for each call from your Exa balance. Through looot, your agent calls Exa per request from one prepaid balance shared with every other provider, and sees the price before each call. The table below reads looot's live price for Exa's jobs and for other search providers when the page loads.

Exa and other search providers through looot, live price per call. Prices read on 2026-11-03 from the live looot catalog. They change when a provider changes its price.

| Option | Cheapest provider | Price per call |
|---|---|---|
| Exa search | Exa | $0.0070 per call |
| Exa answer with sources | Exa | $0.0050 per call |
| Exa page contents | Exa | $0.0010 per call |
| Web search, other providers | Brave Search | $0.0050 per call |

The setup is on the [Exa MCP page](https://looot.ai/mcp/exa), and the ranked list of search providers with what each returns is on the [best web search API page](https://looot.ai/best/web-search-api). For the agent job end to end, see the [web search API use case](https://looot.ai/use-cases/web-search-api). How Exa's prices sit next to other search vendors' is in [web search API pricing](https://looot.ai/blog/web-search-api-pricing), and Tavily's setup is on the [Tavily MCP page](https://looot.ai/mcp/tavily).

## Exa key or per-call route?

Use your own Exa key if Exa is your only search provider and the free credits cover a good part of your volume. Use a per-call route when your agent mixes Exa with other providers, falls back to another search on a miss, or needs company and contact data in the same task, and you want one balance instead of one account per vendor.

## Run it with an agent

Paste this into Claude Code, Cursor or any agent that reads a skill file.

## What it cannot do

- **Exa's Agent API and Websets.** The live table covers search, answer and page contents, not Exa's asynchronous Agent runs or Websets.
- **Exa Monitors.** Re-running a search on a timer needs scheduled runs, not available yet in looot.
- **Free credit.** looot has no free trial credit; you top up a prepaid balance first. See [pricing](https://looot.ai/pricing).

Last checked 2026-11-03. Exa's prices were read that day from the page linked in each table. looot prices are read from the live catalog when the page loads.

## Questions

### How much does the Exa API cost?

Exa prices each endpoint per 1,000 requests or pages, from Lite search up to Deep search, with separate rates for contents, answers, monitors and agent runs. The dated tables in this post show each price as Exa's page stated it on 2026-11-03.

### Is the Exa API free?

Exa gives free credits each month plus an onboarding bonus, with no payment method required. Beyond them you pay per request on pay as you go.

### What is the difference between Exa Lite, Auto and Deep search pricing?

They are three search types at three base prices, Lite the cheapest and Deep the dearest. Lite fits fast agent loops; Deep fits hard questions where a better first answer saves calls.

### Why is my Exa bill higher than the search price?

Extras add to the base price: results above 10, AI page summaries, and page contents requested in the same call. Check what your framework sends with each search.

### How does Exa Agent API pricing work?

Agent runs on effort auto by default, which bills compute units and tool calls as the task needs them. A fixed effort level, from minimal to x-high, gives a fixed price per request.

### What are the Exa API rate limits?

Exa's page lists 10 search queries per second on the free plan and up to 25 on pay as you go, with custom limits on Enterprise.

### Exa vs Tavily pricing: which is cheaper?

It depends on the search type and extras you use on each. The live table in this post shows looot's current price for both side by side, and the [Tavily MCP page](/mcp/tavily) shows Tavily's setup.

### What does an Exa search cost through looot?

The live table in this post reads it from the looot catalog when the page loads. Your agent also sees the price of each call before it runs.

### Can I use Exa without an Exa account?

Yes, per call through looot, from one prepaid balance. Your agent calls Exa's search, answer and contents jobs without an Exa key.

## For agents

### Price an Exa search before running it

```text
Use looot to run an Exa search at a known price. First set up https://looot.ai/skill.md. Inspect the Exa endpoint for the job web.search and show me its price per call, its inputs and which inputs change the price. Then run this query with 10 results and no page contents: <your query>. Show the results, what the call cost, and what 1,000 such searches would cost at that price. Run only 1 call.
```